I've been surprised there's been nobody acquiring legacy telcos just for their easements. The existing POTS and similar infrastructure are probably worth less

I've been surprised there's been nobody acquiring legacy telcos just for their easements. The existing POTS and similar infrastructure are probably worth less now as a going business than if you were to just rip out all the copper and sell it for scrap. On the other hand, they still have pre-negotiated entry into every house and business in town, and the conduit already sunk. It would probably be cheaper, and certainly faster, to buy a firm like Frontier than to negotiate a comparable footprint from scratch. I suspect there's some significant legal continuity-of-service obligations that poison the proposal.